We had a guest speaker come to my home church the Sunday before last, and he said something that has been on my mind ever since. What he said was this: We are as close to God as we want to be.

Amazing how something so important can be stated so simply, but it's the truth. We as Christians choose what kind of relationship we have with God. For years I chose to keep God kinda out of the way. I mean, sure I believed in Him. I went to church and paid my tithe because it was the right thing to do...but I really had no desire to get close with Him.

All that changed a few weeks ago when I made the conscience decision to get as close to God as I possibly could. I found myself wondering why in the world I hadn't done it sooner. This same question was raised to me last week. A friend of mine asked me something to the effect of "Rick, why do we turn our backs on God when we know how much better life is with Him?". That's a great question, but I can only offer my opinion, based on my own experiences.

See, when I was trying to live my life the way I knew I should, I kept finding myself expecting things to be easier, or better for me. I believe I touched on this two blogs ago. Anyways, I could never understand why crap still happened to me. So every time I'd had enough of it, I would say "screw it" and turn my back on God. The way I saw it, He'd turned His back on me first. In fact, I wrote a couple poems about it while growing up. Maybe one of y'all can identify with one of them:

"My Prayer"

Our Father who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
I imagine when you look down on me, Lord,
You shake your head in shame.

How did I get here?
How did I fall?
Why is it when I pray,
I always run into a wall?

We were tight at one time, Father;
I was happy when I gave you my life.
But my life is down the drain now, Lord,
Full of bitterness, hatred, anger, and strife.

Why did you do this to me?
Why do I go through Hell all day?
I know down inside that it's all my fault,
With one prayer it could be ok.

I'm too scared to give you my life back,
I tried it once and I failed.
When I needed you in my hardest times,
It seemed to me like you bailed.

I've decided to walk my own road, Father;
But I get lost day after day.
But being lost is better than being left,
So it's best that it's this way.

Maybe one day it'll all be different,
Maybe I'll trust you again.
But until then just watch over and care for me,
It's in your Son's name I pray this...Amen.



"Changes"

Father, I've come to open my heart up again.
I have so much to say to you, and I don't know where to begin.
I remember with shame the last time that we talked,
And I'm speaking here now from this path I chose to walk.

Funny thing is, Father- I hate being here.
I hate feeling alone, hate feeling full of fear.
I thought doing things my way would make my life smooth.
But my life only got worse the further away that I moved.

I have a big problem now, because my heart is full of anger.
To make matters even worse, it now feels like you're a stranger.
I'm angry at you Lord, for always sending rain my way.
I'm angry at a girl I love, who won't give me the time of day.

I'm angry at my church, for passing judgment on what they see,
And I'm angry at my parents, thought I know they can't always stick up for me.
This anger is destroying me; it's eating at my heart,
My life has got to change, Father...but I don't know where to start.

I'm ready to trust you again, but now it seems like you're not there.
I need to know you love me still, I need to know you care.
I'll keep on trying to find you, God, and I'll be glad when at last I do.
Because then I can stop trying to control my life, I can give it back to you.

Amazing how reading these poems for probably the second time in probably five years...I can see the person that I was last month. Even then, I struggled with the unfairness that I saw in life. I just couldn't shake the "I'm a Christian, life should be sweet" mentality.

When I allowed God to put me back on track several weeks ago, I knew that this very issue was going to come up at some point. Well, with this in mind I decided to get the jump on things. One of the prayers on my list was for God to give me strength against discouragement, and for Him to help me accept the fact that sometimes...crap happens. That's life, pure and simple. This isn't a perfect world, and Christians don't have a free ride through it.

What I wanted to do in this article was show just a couple Bible verses that have really helped me out in this area. And I realize that I'm a little off track with what I initially started out talking about...you'll be ok, I promise, haha.

Almost all of us are familiar with the Biblical character David. You know, the guy that killed Goliath, was king of Israel, the apple in God's eye. I mean, if God ever cared about anyone, it was David. David had God at the top of his "phone a friend" list, so to speak. However, Psalm 13:1 says: "How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? Forever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?" In Psalm 30:7, David writes: "Lord, by thy favour thou hast made my mountain to stand strong: thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled." David writes again in Psalm 69:3, "I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: mine eyes fail while I wait for my God."

I mean, holy cow this guy had it rough. How in the world could a man like David experience something like this? How could someone whom God loved so much have to deal with feeling abandoned by God? Well, I'm afraid we may never know. The bottom line though, is that yeah- bad things happen. We lose jobs, loved ones, get crappy grades, get cheated on. Life for us will suck at some point or another. What we have to remember though, is that even when life gets its hardest, God. Is. Still. There.

See, there was a major difference between me and David. While I would get bitter and leave God, David would sing praises to God. For every verse in the book of Psalms where David is feeling alone and empty, there's probably fifty verses where he tells of God's greatness, of His love. Psalms is a heart wrenching book in the Bible. We can feel David's pain, because we often experience the same emotions. The question is, do we have the faith to trust God to see us through the hard times? Can we really say "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me?"

Lastly, I want to share a passage from the New Testament. Most of us that grew up in a church are familiar with the song that talks about the wise man building his house on the rock, and the foolish man who built his house on sand. This was taken from Matthew 7:24-27, and this is Jesus Christ talking. "Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house: and it fell not, for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it."

This passage has two (at least) powerful statements that I want you to think about. One, it rained on both people. Both the one following God/Jesus, and the one that wasn't. Likewise in our own lives, we've just got to realize that rain falls on everyone. Secondly, and more importantly, by living the life we're supposed to and maintaining close communication with God through His Son, we're able to withstand any storm that comes our way. It's gonna rain...let God be your umbrella.

I'm going to leave you with two questions. One...are you as close to God as you wanna be? And if not...what are you allowing to come between you and Him?

Y'all have a good one.

Previous editions of this series:
* - Edition 1--Oct. 4

Photo Credit: Blake Fought